Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, National Security Policy, Volume XIX

94. Memorandum From the Secretary of Defense (Wilson) to the President¹

Washington, November 20, 1956.

I am attaching for your information a copy of a memorandum I have recently received from the Joint Chiefs of Staff in regard to the force levels and personnel strengths to be used as a basis for the preparation of the Fiscal Year 1958 budget.² I am also attaching a memorandum which I have addressed to the Secretaries of the Military Departments in regard to personnel strengths.³ These papers are forming the basis for our review of the budgets submitted by the Military Departments, and we expect to commence our review of those budget proposals on Monday, 26 November.

I have discussed with the Secretaries of the Military Departments and the Joint Chiefs of Staff as to how we would project our military programs forward into Fiscal Year 1959 and subsequent years. It would seem undesirable for us to fix a definite personnel ceiling or budgetary limitation for the years ahead, and I have explained that I thought we should discuss our forward program as being a substantially level one with the definite assumption:

(a) That we would maintain essentially level personnel strengths and force levels;

(b) That we would maintain essentially the same rate of expenditures for the Department of Defense as a whole; and

(c) That the above program would be based on the premise that there would be no inflation or deflation.

I thought that you might like to have the above information. I will keep you informed as to the progress we are making in the preparation of our 1958 budget.

C.E. Wilson

1. Source: Eisenhower Library, Whitman File. Top Secret.
2. In this memorandum, dated November 15, attached but not printed, the Joint Chiefs of Staff noted that they agreed that the present international situation required continuation of essentially the present force levels and personnel strengths as far as preparation of the fiscal year 1958 budget was concerned.
3. In this memorandum to the Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, dated November 16, attached but not printed, Secretary Wilson suggested: “At this time it would appear desirable to level off our active duty military strength at about the levels now expected to be achieved at the end of this calendar year and to maintain those strengths for the following 18 months.”